Gandhi, once said ‘Real India lives in Villages’ – and statistically speaking, more than 70% of the population lives in 550,000 villages across the country.
But this ‘Real India’ is losing out to the ‘Urban’ [or shall I say, 'fake'?] India.
Infact,it’s not about rural vs. urban anymore. It’s just about India. At the end of the day, India is losing it’s rich tradition/folk music culture which is being obscured by the marketing arms of made-up/filmi/pop music culture.
And to rescue is an attempt by Beat of India, a group of people who are trying to digitize the folk music and bring it to a wider audience.
Ever so often when we heard some fantastic traditional music, one or the other person would say… “All of this will be lost soon” … there should be a way to make this survive.. Finally we decided that saying this is not enough, we need to get together, put about us our heads, resources and energies together and do something about it ourselves.
A creative work is like a tree that has to be nurtured from the time its planted to the time it grows big and bears fruit. Much work, love and care goes into its sustained growth.. In traveling to remote parts of the country, finding the surviving artistes, understanding their music and bringing it to a wider, global audiece, it is work that really has its roots in the soil, its trunk solidly towards the horizon and its shoots reaching up for the sky..
Each download costs Rs. 30 and you can have customized CDs as well. Beat of India pays 10% royalty [on revenue/not profit] to these folk singers.
And hey, this is all DRM free. Still pure. The way it is meant to be. Grab them before Bollywood folks steal away the rhythm from these folk singers.
stay pluGGd.in for interview with founders of BeatofIndia.
By the way, if you enjoy fusion music, jump to IndianOcean site [my favs] and download the mp3s [under albums section]. Learn how to download all mp3s in one click [instead of multiple 'save as'] here.
Update: Navigate here to read our interview with Shefali Bhushan, one of the founders of BeatofIndia.
Tagged:BeatofIndia
Nice find. These guys remind me of Rang de Basanti – instead of cribbing, they are actually doing something! Awesome.
-Harish
just wondering how secure the site is!! looks pretty old stylish..
Wondering how long this site will last given that most internet browsing happens from Urban India and most Urban India are looking to ape the west and high chnaces that folk music could lose out in the long run.
Anonymous
That’s the whole idea!
Urban users do not have any source to listen to these folk music. Have a quick look at their ‘user comments’ section. Even people from US are interested in this site.
Well, folk music can ofcourse lose out to urban, but then – somebody has to brining a change! somebody needs to have the guts to do all this. And thats why I respect these guys..
-Ashish
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